Category Archives: Music

Returned from Winter Break in the Shire*

Been away in a secluded part of the Cotswolds for the last five days. Quality family time despite having a nasty viral cold. Each day brought some new joy or discovery and the whole break gave me some distance and perspective from my everyday life, without descending into naval gazing.

Inspirations..

Seeing everyone battle through really stinky colds and have a real good time despite of the rather glum weather.

The cottage a real calm place of healing, were it was the small touches of decoration that set the mood rather than swamping piles of ‘stuff’.

Visiting Stratford upon Avon and William Shakespear’s Birthplace. Having the ever charming Henry humbled mid charm offensive by a tall red haired actress who commanded the room with an impromptu rendition of the intro to Henry V.  Seeing Evie’s interest in the history of the house. Chuckling slightly at both of them referring to it as the “Haunted House”.

Exploring Bourton on the Water, which like a lot of the area had been touched by the flooding the week before. Seeing the children’s delight at the place, which is good since this is where we are going to be staying for two weeks in the summer. A solid family day 🙂

Visiting the Roll Right Stones just up the hill from were we staying. Seeing the whole family’s spirits being lifted from deeply tired and foul to laughing and full of energy as we reached the stones. ‘Feeling’ the stones awake as I walked into the centre, and experiencing an intense (but subtle: no tales of hair standing on end here) uplift after I walked clockwise round the circle and then back into the center, which seems to have worked on all levels of my being. One immediate benefit seems to be that my cold is rapidly diminishing in power 🙂

The meal that we had at Ask Italian in Morton on the Marsh straight afterwards, which saw all the family on good form and was also inspiring in the way it was presented and content wise. I went into it thinking Pizza Express/Bella Italia and now Ask Italian, is this is going to be much of a muchness? Turned out to be yes one hand by no on the other.

Gazing up at a star filled night sky with the kids.

Seeing the Birds of Prey at the Cotswolds Falconry Centre, always a joy but this time learnt a lot more about them and their behavior and how the lure of an easy life at the centre keeps them there. How each decision is based up how much work has to be done for food.

This music seems appropriate for the way I feel 🙂

*the title reference is that Tolkien’s Shire is supposedly based upon the Cotswolds.

Watch and be inspired

Love this track, from M83’s double CD “Hurry Up We are Dreaming”, and someone has put this series of beautiful clips to it.

As one of the comments on youtube sums it up for me

This makes me forget about all the bad things in my life, and allows me to appreciate the beauty of this magnificent planet. I love u all

A day of tidying up, entertaining the kids (painting and boardgames are on the agenda), and catching up with TV beckons 🙂

For Andy…

I regularly go gigs in Manchester with my mate Andy (aka Nice Andy) and he’s forever extolling the virtue of this stoner or doom metal band. I’m more on the punk/alt side of the fence, and I rave quite regularly about the following bands saying that he must give them a listen.  Well with the magic of You Tube

Alice Donut

The Melvins

No Means No

Polkadot Cadaver

Life and Death

One of the milestone moments of 2012 was the death of my Father, Derek Newport. At some point I’ll post something about how I feel about his death, but its not the time at the moment with the world stuck in the winter blues.

However two music related pieces that struck me cold this morning.

One of my favourite musicians Wilko Johnson is talking on the BBC about how he feels now that he’s been diagnosed with Terminal Cancer.

  • Wilko Johnson: ‘Terminal cancer has made me feel alive’

    • “The things that used to bring me down, or worry me, or annoy me, they don’t matter anymore – and that’s when you sit thinking ‘Wow, why didn’t I work this out before? Why didn’t I work out before that it’s just the moment you’re in that matters?’

    “Worrying about the future or regretting the past is just a foolish waste of time. Of course we can’t all be threatened with imminent death, but it probably takes that to knock a bit of sense into our heads.”

    Meanwhile another one of my favourite musicians, and friend, Keef Baker has a new lp out inspired by the death of his father last year, under his Nimon moniker which is him doing ambient using only a guitar.

  • Nimon – Drowning in Good intentions.

    • Keith ‘keef’ baker has been a musician for over 20 years and has worked in a very wide range of styles. his output of side projects since the last ‘keef baker’ release shows just some of the stylistic range. ‘sharps injury’: powernoise, ‘ocdc’: complextro, ‘crackpuncher’: grindcore, even comedic ebm: ‘mandro1d’. not to mention various micro-projects and collaborations. but nimon is something different, something much more personal. written at a time just before and not long after the death of a close family member when nothing was soothing his soul except the intensely pure sounds of brian eno, sunn o)), stars of the lid, christian fennesz and their ilk. the intention behind nimon was to create ambient music by deploying the limitless potential of the electric guitar as the only instrumentation, pouring the pain he was feeling into his playing and then tearing those recordings into pieces using sound design, reversing, pitch manipulation, time stretching and a whole world of both standard effects and maxforlive modulations resulting in deep, majestic ambient compositions, developing dense worlds of ethereal, dreamy atmospheres. with ‘drowning in good intentions’ nimon manages the remarkable feat of channeling deep emotion into a sound that’s uncompromisingly advanced and cerebral. a constant flow of superior, shimmering drones, melodic and cinematic with a dark, but sweetly sorrowful elegiac quality. ‘drowning in good intentions’ is a simultaneously a trip into despair, grief and hope.

    Metal, RPG Geekery and Fatherhood, i.e. business as usual

    Been a while since I updated but here’s a summary of what I’ve been upto (…..here come the bullet points).

    Beating off the Winter Blooz, lets face it kids its still cold out there. Doesn’t mean it has to be in here 😉

    Metal!!!! Went to see Metallica at the MEN Arena last night with Nice Andy. Had tea at the Marble Arch, a real ale pub and microbrewery coming out of Manchester. Really nice grub and serveral of their lovely beers left me a bit worse for wear later.  Best of all though discovered that their head brewer, James, is a mate from Leeds who left in the mid 90s to learn the art of brewing in Sheffield. Had a very quick catch up and it was damn nice to see him again 🙂  Then onto the souless concreate bowl that is the MEN Arena. Don’t get me wrong Metallica was on form, but the venue really didn’t do it for me. I guess I’m getting too old and grumpy to stand in enormo domes looking down at a group of ants on the stage.

    RPG – steadly working away here. Infinte War my Theme for gspearing ‘s Wordplay was delivered. 7000 words of Timetravelling Weirdness inspired by Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time and Micheal Moorcock’s Jerry Cornellius stories. March’s big thing is going to be SimpleQuest, which dispite some last minitue quibbles over the rules is on track for completetion this weekend. Then the rest of March editing by gspearing  and layout by me. Hearts in Glorantha 3 steadly comes together, with an underwater feature being on the cards with 18 pages of Ocean Monsters by Nick Davison and a 20 page epic Dwarf adventure set in a brass submarine 🙂 Also things are afoot so I’ll be able to get HiG available via a couple of UK shops who also do online for the rest of the world, so you can get a print version without paying the riddiclous P&P Lulu.com charge.

    Father hood – continues to be one of the most vindicating and enjoyable experiences of my life. Evie is growing up fast and continues to be a bright and sparky little girl. Shes well on the way to being fully potty trained after a week of trying and her talking is coming on strong. Oh and she doesn’t walk anywhere, she runs! Just like her late Great Grandmother Ethel 🙂

    Further information

    Tuneage

    Started using Last Fm again.

    New tunes recently

    Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
    Recommended by lots of folk, modern prog rock. Very good kinda like a heavier Marillion , but that’s only half the story.

    Dillinger Escape Plan – Ire Works
    Noisey, angry but with lots of mellow moments, melody, jazz, classical. A step on from their last release ‘Miss Machine’, this one is going to get alot of play.

    Keef Baker – RedEye
    Great weird intense electronic music. Similar to the last release (‘The Widnes Years’) but BIGGER AND BETTER.

    The Young Gods – Super Ready/Fragmente
    Return of the mighty!! If you loved them in the 90s they are back on top form!!

    Dark Ambient to kill aliens by

    My mate keefybabe is an excellent muscian. Not only has put out three cracking lps (Widnes Years, Pure Language and Red Eye) but he occasionally fiddles about and puts out some great stuff for free. This is what he put on his LJ this morning;

    Not sure what to do on your first day off?

    Why not write a 26 minute long ambient track?

    No drums, no shocks, just 26 mins of evolving ambient.

    Dunno if it’s any good or not, it was just something to do after breakfast.

    Cracking stuff, this is getting used for backing music for a Sci-fi Horror game (of a certain game thats being released in Feb) this weekend.